The parties are not disclosing the terms of their agreement, though hospital CEO Dr. Mark Peters said it is a three-year deal, the same duration as the previous Blue Cross-EJGH deal that expired Oct. 3, and is in line with the typical range for contracts between an insurer and a large community hospital.

Signed on Monday and announced jointly on Tuesday, the agreement affects as many as 140 doctors with admitting privileges and as many as 20,000 Blue Cross policy holders who have regularly used East Jefferson General Hospital in recent years. The hospital is processing Blue Cross claims with no threat of patients having to pay out-of-network fees or other out-of-pocket costs besides co-pays or deductibles dictated by their policies.

Before the recent split, Blue Cross accounted for 13 percent of East Jefferson's operating revenue annually and 43 percent of its revenue from privately insured patients. The hospital accounts for about 5 percent of annual Blue Cross claims in the New Orleans region. That revenue is particularly crucial for East Jefferson, which has posted operating losses exceeding $160 million since Hurricane Katrina.

Peters described the deal more as a victory for Blue Cross policy holders than for either of the parties. Blue Cross Vice President John Maginnis declined to comment beyond a brief statement from Peters and Blue Cross CEO Mike Reitz.

Contract negotiations between insurers and health care providers are routine and typically play out without attention, but Peters took the dispute public in August in a play for leverage. What followed was a bitter public back-and-forth between Peters and Reitz with no agreement before the October deadline.

Peters initially sought an 18 percent increase in the reimbursement rates for services East Jefferson delivered for Blue Cross policy holders. He argued that he was trying to position East Jefferson alongside its top market competitor: Ochsner Health System, in particularly the Ochsner main campus on Jefferson Highway.

Reitz countered that Peters' demand was unreasonable and would make East Jefferson an outlier in the New Orleans market, including in a comparison to Ochsner. At one point, Blue Cross countered with a contract that would have shifted East Jefferson from a fee-per-service schedule to a diagnosis-based payment schedule, meaning the insurer would pay a flat rate for a specific condition, with the hospital's profit margins depending on a patient's course and duration of care. The so-called "DRG model" is an increasingly common structure of insurer-provider contracts, with insurers framing them as a way to encourage operating efficiencies.

Peters said he had no problem with the DRG concept, but East Jefferson General rejected the specific proposal, which Peters said would have yielded about a 9 percent increase in its overall Blue Cross revenues. He also bristled at any suggestion that East Jefferson should improve its own efficiencies before commanding more money from Blue Cross.

Because contract terms are considered proprietary, with no state or federal regulations compelling disclosure, it is impossible to wade through the parties' various claims about the New Orleans market.

The joint statement Tuesday does not mention specific changes to the payment structure, but it does suggest that the new model could incorporate some incentives and considerations beyond the simplistic fee-for-service. At the very least, it amounts to a rhetorical concession from both sides: "East Jefferson General Hospital General Hospital has agreed to hold the line on costs, and Blue Cross recognizes the high quality of care provided to its members at this institution."

Whatever the arrangement, it is clear from a public relations and, ultimately, financial perspective that any agreement is beneficial for both parties and perhaps necessary for East Jefferson.

In October, when the last contract lapsed, Blue Cross scrambled to let its policy holders know that their Blue Cross coverage did not tie them to East Jefferson General and that their doctors, themselves independent contractors with their own Blue Cross agreements, could simply point them to other hospitals. Blue Cross publicized that scores of East Jefferson General doctors secured admitting privileges at other facilities, principally the Ochsner main campus.

East Jefferson General, meanwhile, worked to hold on to Blue Cross doctors and their patients by announcing that the hospital, at least initially, would accept whatever Blue Cross would pay for out-of-network services, while waiving out-of-network fees for nearly all Blue Cross customers. That would mean lower reimbursements per Blue Cross patient but still more revenue than losing a patient altogether. The patient also published Q&A's on how to change insurers, a blatant attempt to encourage patients to put their hospital loyalties above their relationship with Blue Cross, but also a long-shot considering the many customers who have employer-based group coverage.

Peters said the hospital's patient volume dropped about 10 percent during the out-of-network period. He said he hoped to recoup that business quickly and would work to recruit doctors and their patients back to the hospital.